[mythtv-users] Time to take the next step...

[VCRAddict]

At 03:54 AM 11/16/08 +0000, robbinsck1 at gmail.com wrote:
 >
 > Nice message, looks like you may be ready to be a true timeshifter. 
 > 

Heh.  Been that for *years*.  I still have three Beta VCRs (one of them in
service!).

 > I'll just comment on a few things I remember. 
 > 
 > I don't know of any "piggyback" sata cables. But don't limit yourself to 
 > just sata drives in your main backend. There's always a stand-alone 
 > network drives, a couple 1 TB's in each front end etc. 

The existing FE/BE won't support an external HDD (no SCSI, FireWire, no
eSATA, and the USB ports are only v1.0 which is much too slow).  Besides, I
really don't want to screw around with the existing FE/BE system _at_least_
until I get the new back-end up and running.  And even then, I'd be more
likely to just build a whole new replacement FE/BE system for the Living
Room (thus freeing up the existing one to move to the MBR) than attempt to
"fix what ain't broke" in-place.

As for hanging "external" drives off the new back-end via USB or
whatever...  I'm guessing that would impose even more of a performance
bottleneck than doing software RAID on a stack of in-box drives.  Plus it's
more clutter and exposed cabling for the cat to attack.  Maybe as a
dedicated backup solution, or down the road if/when I decide I want a
quick-'n'-dirty way to add more storage to the back-end system without
rebuilding the system or adding yet another backend box.  But for now, I'm
pretty much set on using internal drives, and keeping at least the bulk of
them in that one box.

 > My opinion is Raid for the actual recordings is overkill, after all if 
 > one does crash there will be reruns.

You don't know my wife -- or how addicted I am to certain forms of auto
racing.

;-)

Seriously...  Given the existence of cost-effective 1TB+ drives, as long as
I can get at least short-term fault-tolerance for a "cost" of only 25% (or
less) of my total storage capacity, I'm quite OK with that.  I fully
understand that RAID does *not* obviate the need for regular backups; but
it does buy me some "unpleasant surprise" insurance.

 > However, what should have raid 
 > redundancy is your main OS and database as well as a automated regulary 
 > scheduled "off-site" or at least "off-server"  backup. 

I *may* look at implementing the boot/os/apps "drive" as a mirrored pair
under Linux software RAID, if I can find a pair of appropriately matched
smallish drives in my spares pile.

However, somewhere in the deeper recesses of my (very unreliable, these
days) BioRAM, I seem to recall that there is some sort of Catch-22/"After
you, Alphonse" issue WRT using Linux software RAID on the same drive volume
you're attempting to boot Linux from (something about when in the boot
process the RAID drivers actually get loaded).  I'll need to do more
research before making a decision on this.

 > Lirc: My thoughts are if your mythbox isn't perfect, fix it (after a 
 > backup or two).

I'd love to.  But I don't want to put its usability at risk in the process.
 We *do* count on that machine being operational on a daily basis.  I can't
afford significant down-time.

 > After all you did it from scratch, you can do it again. And it will be 
 > better the next time around.

Maybe.  But with everything else that's on my plate at the moment, I just
don't have the time or energy for a trial-and-error "forensic development"
process for anything non-critical.  That's why I asked for a pointer to a
cookbook approach.  Failing that, it works "well enough" for now.

 > Your export problem is most likely related to your dvd-rw drive not 
 > being itentified properly in settings or maybe there's no ffmpeg on 
 > your system or something to the sort. We would need to see your logs 
 > to know for sure. 

If you can give me a pointer to which specific log files you need, I can
take a stab at finding/posting them.

 > Um, that's all I can remember. But Yes
 > Myth really does ROCK!

Indeed!  ;-)